Obama's Drone-Master

John Brennan, the CIA director and the man largely responsible for the U.S.'s drone strategy, is so influential that some Pentagon officials have taken to calling him the "Deputy President." In an exclusive interview, _GQ'_s Reid Cherlin talks to Brennan about the ethics of targeted killing, the next global arms race (get ready for everybody to have their own drones), and what it feels like to be the guy the president turns to when he wants a bad guy blown away

"I’m going up to Jersey tomorrow, to try to escape." John O. Brennan, President Obama’s top counterterrorism advisor and his soon-to-be new CIA director, leans back in his chair. Brennan is a proud son of Hudson County, a baseball player at his Catholic high school, a commuter student at Fordham. It’s a common-touch backstory that, a tad predictably, Brennan’s fans bring up all the time, and that he himself seems to cling to. He points to a photograph on the wall behind my head, a black and white shot of George H.W. Bush, surrounded by aides.

"The guy walking through the door actually is me, with hair," he says. "That was the first time I went into the Oval Office. I remember almost pinching myself, saying, ’What’s a guy from Jersey doing in here? And why does the president really care about what I say?’ Now, since then, I’ve been in the Oval Office I guess hundreds of times, and there are still a lot of times I say to myself, ’What’s a guy from Jersey—you know, doing in this?’"

Brennan is 57, his broad, creased face framed by a cropped fringe of gray hair. He’s wearing a blue dress shirt and a red tie; there are two pens clipped into his breast pocket. He seems to be thinking for a moment. Bolted to the ceiling above us, a flat-screen TV loops Al Jazeera, on mute. "One, it shows that this is truly a land of opportunity, that someone like me can work his way up through the ranks. And can have a, uh"—he looks over his shoulder, at a workspace as cramped and synthetic as a ship captain’s quarters—"a windowless office in the West Wing. With a low ceiling."

It is February, shortly after his raucous confirmation hearings for the top job at Langley, and he has agreed to a rare interview—so far as I can tell, still his only one this year—to talk about America’s drone campaign, a program he’d helped to steer. Outside estimates of the death toll range as high as 4,000 (numbers the administration scoffs at), including at least four American citizens. And though you and I are probably never going to join Al Qaeda or hang out with militants in Yemen, our government definitely thinks it could kill you if it thought you had joined up with Al Qaeda or were hanging out with militants in Yemen. It is a worrying indication of where things are headed that in his May counterterrorism speech, the president actually had to reassure people, "For the record: I do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any U.S. citizen—with a drone, or with a shotgun—without due process, nor should any president deploy armed drones over U.S. soil."

"I don’t think going in, a lot of people thought that President Obama would be more aggressive, more on the offense than President Bush was, in that region, and he has been," says Michael Leiter, a former director of the National Counterterrorism Center. "And a big reason he has been, in my view, is because John made him comfortable that those were the means necessary to accomplish the goal." In his previous job as Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, Brennan would often make the final recommendation to the president, and receive the go or no-go for high-stakes strikes. He was, reportedly, the primary supervisor of a new "playbook," a set of rules that will govern our drone program going forward.

What it means for public confidence that there should be non-public rules—for non-public drone strikes—is unclear. For Brennan, the question is more personal, and one that he has grappled with for years now: is there a moral way to do something that may be inherently immoral? It is a question that has followed him across the river to CIA headquarters—and that has already put enormous power into his hands. As one military official told me over the winter: "We call him ’Deputy President.’"

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**GQ: I was at your confirmation hearing last week and it was overrun by protestors. You actually addressed them in the hearing. You said: "And the people that were standing up here today, I think they really have a misunderstanding of what we do as a government, and the care that we take, and the agony that we go through to make sure that we do not have any collateral injuries or deaths." Somehow I think that isn’t quite coming through. **

JB: The misunderstandings—or, what really bothers me are the intentional misrepresentations of the facts, which take place on a fairly regular basis. To think that we, people who are involved in counterterrorism, do not care about civilian casualties or deaths or injuries, is just totally, totally wrong.

**GQ: You’ve mentioned that Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin, who led the protests at your hearing [and who would go on to interrupt President Obama’s counterterrorism speech in May] knocked on your door at home on a Sunday morning. What happened there? **

JB: I was getting ready to leave to go to work. [Laughs.] I usually am not home on a Sunday morning about 11:00, but I decided to do bills or something that morning. And so I was on the way out when she knocked on my door. I thought she was a neighbor; I knew she looked familiar, but I didn’t know who she was. And when she was saying she was overseas and she wants to talk to me about this, whatever—then I finally put two and two together. My wife came out and my wife knew who she was. [Laughs.] I was—I was empathizing with her. Because I think she’s really trying to do good, and protect innocents from what she sees as this murderous program. And the women, and the men, who were standing up and shouting [at his Senate hearing], they really were trying to do what they thought was the right thing to do, based on their sense of morality. So who am I to judge them? Because they were operating on what they think. I like to give them the benefit of the doubt that they really believe this. And so, if anything, I was disappointed that I cannot explain to them, convince them, that their impression is wrong. That the care that is taken in our efforts really have avoided, as much as we can—as humanly possible—the types of deaths and injuries that they are protesting.

**GQ: You can see that when the government says, "We think those figures are wrong, but we can’t correct them"— **

JB: Absolutely. And it really is difficult to be able to, you know, push back against a lot of these allegations that are not true. At the same time, there are some things that the government does—and I’m not going to defend, you know, keeping everything secret, or something secret—but that national security requires that there be appropriate protection of sources and methods. Which is, you know, it’s part of the business, unfortunately. Now, I think the president certainly is pushing us to be as open and transparent as possible, while at the same time making sure that we’re doing what we need to do to protect our national security and to protect people’s lives.

I don’t think the people who are out there—the people who have come to my house with placards and posters showing mutilated women and children—understand the agony that so many people go through in the counterterrorism community to make sure they don’t make a mistake. Either a mistake of omission or a mistake of commission. And they both weigh heavily on one’s mind. Because inaction can have tremendous consequences, just the way an inappropriate action can.

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_A few weeks after our meeting, Rand Paul would full-on Mr. Smith-filibuster Brennan’s confirmation, speechifying about drones’ encroachment on civil liberties for 13 straight hours. Indeed, his nomination seemed suddenly to set off a collective, unhappy realization that by electing and reelecting Obama we’d made a kind of bargain: he would end the old wars and stay out of new ones, and in return, he’d have a long leash to go after terrorists with drone strikes. Even Obama’s promise to close Guantanamo has had the unintended consequence of amping up the drone war. Capturing terror suspects is less feasible, because we have nowhere to put them, so we zap them instead. _

_ The drumbeat of dismaying reports never seems to let up. Recently, NBC News reported in bleak terms the use of so-called "signature strikes"—drone shots where we go after unidentified targets based solely on behavior that looks shady from a distance. (Administration officials have recently hinted that signature strikes will wind down, but here again, they won’t talk about it openly.) Between 2010 and 2011, according to NBC, the government categorized only one death out of 600 as a civilian casualty. Brennan knows this type of thing does not inspire confidence, here or in the countries where the program operates. _

**GQ: One of the main criticisms against the program is that we’re delegitimizing the friendly governments who are letting us do this. **

JB: We’re very cognizant that these types of programs have the potential, and reality, of backlash. And we need to be very mindful of that. You know, the example of Yemen. It’s astounding how many Yemenis have died at the hands of Al Qaeda. AQAP have crucified Yemenis. They have beheaded them. They have disemboweled them. So President Hadi and others are saying, ’We need help against this cancer within our country here.’ And we’re trying to do this in a manner that does not lead to any type of backlash against us or the government. So it’s striking that proper balance.

I just had an hour-and-a-half meeting on Yemen, an interagency meeting with senior officials from throughout the government. Never once in that 90-minute meeting did we talk about a drone shot, or a kinetic strike [the government’s term of art—kinetic—for blowing things up]. We talked about what we need to do to encourage and enhance the national dialogue that’s taking place, the economic assistance taking place, the capacity-building—doing the types of things that we need to do for Yemen. And so unfortunately, when people talk about, you know, they think we rely on drones to effect change in these countries, that it’s over-reliance on them. Well no! It’s a small part of it.

**GQ: But people aren’t seeing these as strikes of last resort. They’re seeing that strikes just lead to more strikes. I talked to Peter W. Singer, a drones expert at the Brookings Institution, who told me that some officials think of the program as "mowing the lawn." **

JB: There are a lot of people who talk about these issues very callously, on the outside. Because they’re not a part of it. And it’s easy for people to criticize, to lay blame…Sometimes you need to take these types of kinetic actions, because you’re trying to give these other efforts time and space. And if we don’t arrest the growth of Al Qaeda in a Yemen, or a Mali, or a Somalia, or whatever else, that cancer is going to overtake the body politic in the country, and then we’re going to have a situation that we’re not going to be able to address.

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_That imperative—and the technological swagger to do something about it—is going to have consequences, legal concerns, and civilian deaths: drone warfare is rapidly shaping up to be the next global arms race. "Around eighty-seven countries now have military robotics programs," Singer had told me. "And a range of non-state actors—from terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, to paparazzi agencies, to kids who got a present from their parents at Brookstone—have the technology." _

**GQ: What’s going to stop people from doing this to us? Or what’s to stop the government of Syria from using them to start attacking the rebels? Doesn’t this seem like this is sort of a dangerous and self-perpetuating thing in some ways? **

JB: Absolutely. There are some real concerns out there that the US government has. It’s a remotely piloted aircraft that has ordnance on it. And that technology continues to evolve and develop. The whole technological revolution and evolution gives man tremendous capabilities for good, and it also gives individuals tremendous capability to carry out what result in lethal action. And we don’t have a monopoly on the technology or the capability. And trying to think of where this is going in the next 10 or 20 years, both in terms of the sophistication of the technology as well as the proliferation of it, it raises some very fundamental and serious questions about, should there be a governance structure for this internationally. And what are the standards of behavior and the norms? What are going to be the appropriate uses of it? And we have said—I’ve said publicly—the United States is setting standards here. What the president has tried to do is make sure that we are going to use whatever technology is available to us in the most judicious, the most careful, proportional, ethical, wise manner possible.

**GQ: I’ve talked to a lot of supporters and a lot of opponents, and even people who hate the drone program say ’But I hear he’s a really nice guy.’ They see you as a moral person. **

JB: I had a philosophy professor at Fordham, who I cited in my commencement address there last year, who really had quite an impact on me, because he was teaching Just War Theory. And [after my nomination he emailed me,] saying that, unlike science, where you’re trying to discover a cure for cancer, finding moral truths is not a result of such a discovery. You don’t one day go, ’Aha!’ It’s more of a journey, and through trial and error and experience, and understanding about the implications, the impact of things. So it’s almost divining one’s way.

_Colleagues say this is one reason Brennan and Obama got to be close quickly (not what you’d expect of a CIA veteran and a liberal law professor, after all): they share a belief in Just War Theory, the idea that war can be morally acceptable under—and only under—particular circumstances. As Obama put it in his counterterrorism speech: "We are at war with an organization that right now would kill as many Americans as they could if we did not stop them first. So this is a just war: a war waged proportionally, in last resort, and in self-defense." But these are all judgment calls. _

_ It’s clearly important to both Obama’s and Brennan’s senses of self that there should be a morality behind our lethal operations, a continuing journey of ethical reasoning. For Brennan, that journey may have started in the philosophy classroom at Fordham, but just as foundational was the moment when theory was tested by the sickening realities of terrorism. In April 1983, when Brennan was in his third year at the Agency, a suicide bomber blew up the American embassy in Beirut. Among the 63 dead were employees of the CIA, including Brennan’s mentor, a Middle East expert named Robert Ames. _

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**GQ: Can I ask you about Bob Ames? **

JB: He was a legend in many respects. He’d spent a lot of time in Yemen, was a very good Arabist, and someone who I had gotten to know in CIA. That was the first time that a terrorist attack came home to me in terms of killing somebody who I knew—who I worked for.

**GQ: I’ve heard that he was this sort of larger-than-life figure— **

JB: Oh he was, yeah. He was a tall guy; he was an imposing figure. Especially since I was, at the time, 27 years old, I think. He had a great reputation as being the epitome of an operations officer [that is, a spy-runner] in the Middle East at a time of great intrigue and coups and other things. I was studying Arabic in an intense tutorial for about six or seven months, so when I would come back into the office, I’d see Bob, and he would test me, almost, on my Arabic. So he’d be listening very carefully to, you know, my chuh and my ghuh.

**GQ: And were you sitting in the embassy in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia when you heard he was killed? **

JB: Yeah. He was killed while he was in the stairwell. And I remember talking to people who had to then identify the body, and they said there was barely a scratch on him [tracing an index finger down his cheek]—but it was the percussion of the explosion that just tore people’s insides apart. And so he was killed almost instantly.

**GQ: Do you ever get inured to the losses? **

JB: I don’t think you ever get used to it. Unfortunately it’s happened too often. You know, when you—if you allow yourself to really focus on the, the human dimension and the emotional side of it, you really get quite—quite emotional. What I don’t want to do is get maudlin. Because I can do that. Because, if you think about, you know, the individuals? It’s—it can be an emotional drain. It can.

_During the course of our conversation, what Brennan seems to be saying is that he knows he will never convince his detractors—hell, he’s barely allowed to tell them about what he does—so he has to do his own self-policing to make sure his actions live up to his ethics. He must be, in a way, a closed moral system, a morality unto himself. But obviously there’s a real loophole there. Can anyone—over a long and arduous campaign of judgment calls—be a reliable check against himself? Even as Obama indicates that he’ll institutionalize the decision-making, Brennan’s self-examinations remind us that at the moment of go or no-go, it’s a personal decision, guided by personal conviction. _

**GQ: How challenging is it to say, ’Yes, you should take out this person’? **

JB: I’m not ideological. I think sometimes when people are ideological, the world’s a lot easier. Because it falls into either right or wrong, or black or white, or whatever. To me, I’m still trying to figure out a lot of things. You always, I think, debate with yourself about whether or not you made the right decision. And you have to then give the person that you’re working for—in my instance, the president—your best judgment based on your understanding of the facts, but also the calculus you use to make a determination about what’s the best way to go forward.

If anything, when I go to the president now, and I make a recommendation, the thing that allows me to feel good about what I’m doing, is that I can bring 30 years of experience to the issue, so that that journey about finding that which works best, or that which is most grounded in either Just War Theory, or morality, or right or wrong—is a result of the tremendous good fortune that I’ve had, being in the White House years ago, and having the opportunities to travel and live overseas.

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There are a lot of people in the counterterrorism community who have tremendously weighty responsibilities. And I’ve seen them agonize and struggle as they’re poring over intelligence and trying to make assessments about, you know, who was responsible for putting together this plot that is, if it comes to fruition, is going to kill Americans—men, women, and children. You always want more data; you want more information. But at some point you still have to—I get a call; I have to go up and see the president.

_Reid Cherlin, a former spokesperson for the Obama White House, is a frequent contributor to _GQ.

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